Higher surface area of zirconia catalysts were prepared with different digestion duration, doping with Si and modification with alkali. Hydrous zirconia after digestion resulted in higher surface area. The alkali-doped zirconia has up to 20 m2/g higher surface area than the undoped zirconia. However, it did not show significant differences in the selectivity to 4-methyl-1-pentene in the decomposition of 4-methyl-2-pentanol compared to pure zirconia. The incorporation of Si in zirconia resulted in a higher surface area and reached the maximum of 271 m2/g with 15 wt. % Si loading. However, the extremely high acidity led to a very poor selectivity to 4-methyl-1-pentene in decomposition of 4-methyl-2-pentanol. Modification onto silica-zirconia catalyst was carried out to obtain higher surface area of zirconia-based catalysts with acid-base properties as close to that of pure zirconia. However, the highest selectivity to 4-methyl-1-pentene over the silica-zirconia samples after alkali doping was 44 %, which is still lower than for pure zirconia, 64 %.